Despite rumors that mentioned Dan Henderson moving to middleweight to unify the 185 lb. belts at UFC 81 it appears that Dan won't be cutting to 185 anytime soon. The Fight Network had the scoop from the UFC 78 Press Conference:

White conceded he had no idea who would be next to challenge Anderson Silva for the UFC middleweight championship. He said he had continued attempts to coax former Olympian Dan Henderson into a title fight with Silva. Henderson remains resistant to the move.

The UFC held a press conference on monday promoting UFC 78: Validation. I didn't hear much in the way of UFC 78 but there was some interesting news to come out of the press conference. Dana White had originally said that Sean Sherk wouldn't be stripped of the title but later back tracked on those statments according to MMA Weekly:

In announcing the interim title fight, White stated, "The belt can't be in limbo for this long. I've said since the beginning that I believe in Sean Sherk, but we have to support the athletic commission in whatever decision they make."

He added to that during Mondays conference call.

"B.J. Penn and Joe Stevenson are going to fight for the interim title. We'll see what happens with Sherk. If Sherk is found guilty, we'll support the (California) State Athletic Commission and he'll probably be stripped of his title. If not, then he'll keep his title and it will be champion vs. champion."

Here's the info on the Randy Couture situation:

If that weren't enough, the UFC has also had to deal with the discord with its heavyweight champion, Randy Couture, who suddenly "resigned" from the promotion in early October.

Following several public statements and presentations from both sides expressing disappointment over the situation, recent speculation is that Mark Cuban's new fight promotion, HDNet Fights, has offered Couture a position within the company and that he is close to, if not already, accepting the offer.

White however, indicated that the UFC has offered its champion a title defense and is awaiting a response.

"We officially offered it to him and we haven't heard back yet. We should know this week. He (sent me a text message) yesterday and said he wants to sit down and talk." Asked if there would possibly be an interim belt issued for the heavyweight division as well, White was emphatic that would not happen.

"No. Randy's going to make a decision one-way or the other. We're going to get together next week, I think, and talk and see where we're at."

Sam Caplan once again has a great article recapping the UFC press conference yesterday at his ProElite blog. Sam did an awesome job with the last one and this one is great too. Here's the sweetness:

According to Mulkey, Randy Couture received a $500,000 signing bonus, half of which ($250,000) was paid at the time of his signing the contract earlier this year. This clearly contradicts Couture's claim last week that he asked for a signing bonus and was declined.

Dana White explained that it was a true signing bonus in the sense that if Randy, given his age, was injured and couldn't compete, he'd still get his bonus. As such, they decided to meet his request for a signing bonus of $500,000 but withhold the other half ($250,000) until after his fight at UFC 68 vs. Tim Sylvia.

The UFC also claimed that Couture signed an employment agreement. The employment agreement paid Randy two annual salaries of $200,000 and $56,000. The $56,000 was clearly defined as being for his role with the company as a commentator while I believe the $200,000 was for his promotional role as an ambassador.

For UFC 68, Couture received a $250,000 purse in addition to the other half of his signing bonus ($250,000), according to the UFC. I believe Mulkey also said Couture received $936,000 as a bonus for PPV sales.

My understanding is that it takes three months for the UFC to receive their money from the cable company and then they have until 10 days after they receive their payment from the cable company to pay a fighter his PPV bonus. According to Mulkey, to date, Couture has received $924,000 of the $936,000 bonus.

According to the UFC, Randy's total take from UFC 68 was $1.086 million. However, it appears he's still owed $12,000 from the PPV bonus.

UFC.com has their own recap available here. The funny thing is yesterday that article was different, i didn't read the whole thing and it also contained a link to the documents the UFC handed out. But it is no longer there. I saved it yesterday. You can view it here. Its in PDF format and you will need Adobe Reader to view it.

Mr. Sunshine has tons of audio from the presser. He asked some great questions too. Some of the journalists out there asked some really stupid shit. Cofield went right after the UFC at the press conference and asked some really good questions. It's good to see there are some people that aren't complete idiots covering the sport.

UFC.com released word that Lorenzo Fertita and Dana White are going to hold a press conference tomorrow afternoon at 4PM EST/1 PM PST. The press conference will be streamed live tomorrow at UFC.com. The post is on the front page and here's what it says:

Dana White, UFC President and Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC co-owner will hold a press conference Tuesday, October 30th, to address recent statements made by Randy Couture, and answer questions for the media. The press conference will be streamed live via UFC.com starting at 1pm PT/4pm ET/20:00 GMT.

Yahoo! Sports is also going to be streaming the event live at 4 PM EST/1 PM PST.

Randy Couture also held a press conference yesterday to shed some light on his recent resignation from the UFC, as the UFC HW Champ and an ambassador for the UFC. While really no big news came out of the presser it was still worthy of watching.

ProElite.com streamed the press conference live but apparently had some technical difficulties. Nevertheless, the whole presser can be seen at ProElite.com now.

Ben Fowlkes over at 5 Oz. has an awesome recap of the events. If you're not going to watch the whole presser this will definately give you the pertinent details you need. Here is a good passage from the article:

Despite his dominating performance against Gonzaga, the UFC did not offer him a bonus, according to Couture. He said that when he asked why, he did not receive answer. Couture said he waited two and a half weeks for an explanation after a face-to-face meeting with White, before ultimately deciding to tender his resignation.

"I gave them a chance to respond. I didn't understand why I got overlooked and didn't get a bonus in my last fight," Couture said. "I gave them a chance to respond. I don't understand why I didn't get a response."

Couture also said that media reports claiming he was due to receive several million dollars per fight under his current contract were flatly untrue. He later said that he came out of retirement to fight for the UFC heavyweight title after turning down a $3 million dollar offer from the Bodog organization for a match with Fedor Emelianenko.

"That's more money than I've ever been offered to fight," Couture said of the Bodog offer.

Couture went on to suggest that the UFC's failure to sign Emelianenko was a factor in his decision, as well, saying, "At this point in my career it's the only fight that really makes sense for me."

The UFC held a press conference yesterday to announce the deal between SpikeTV and the UFC. They also had Brock Lesnar, Dana White, Chuck Liddell, and Wanderlei Silva available for comment. Sam Caplan has the best transcript from the conference call available in my opinion. Here's the skinny on the SpikeTV deal:

The deal includes five additional seasons of The Ultimate Fighter (26 episodes will be produced in 2008 and 26 more episodes in 2009 with one season due in 2010) and 12 live telecasts over the course of the four-year contract.

As a part of the agreement, a new live fight series will debut in 2010 and will air in 2011. It sounds as though this new fight series will be replacing The Ultimate Fighter reality television show. There weren't many details provided in regard to the new concept other than to state that it will be a live fight series and will involve a caliber of fighter at least one level above what appears on TUF on average each season.

Dana White on when BJ Penn will fight:

White did not confirm that B.J. Penn will be fighting Joe Stevenson at UFC 79 on Dec. 29 but did say that he thinks it will happen on that card. Although, he added that he wasn't sure.

Dana White on the Andrei Arlovski:

White was asked about Andrei Arlovski by a Chicago reporter. Dana said that Arlovski is "on the bench right now" and that he wants Arlovski to fight. He then alluded to contract issues but the reporter said his impression from Arlovski's camp is that he wants to fight and is waiting for an offer. Dana acted surprise. He said if Arlovski wants to talk then he's willing to fly to Chicago "tomorrow." The reporter asked Dana if the UFC was unhappy with Arlovski and Dana said no but then he said Arlovski's last fight for the promotion was boring.

Randy Couture's management released the Following Press Release a few days ago:

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25th - MMA Legend Randy Couture will hold a national press conference at Xtreme Couture Martial Arts to address his reasons for resigning from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in every capacity. Randy will respond to the comments made by UFC President Dana White. Additionally, Randy will respond to Yahoo! Sports report that he makes between $3.25 million - $3.75 million per fight, which they continue to stand behind.

Afterwards, Randy will make himself available to answer questions concerning his relationship with the UFC, future plans, MMA as a sport or anything else pertaining to his resignation.

According to Sam Caplan ProElite.com will have live coverage of the press conference starting at 4:30 PM EST. Registration is free at ProElite.com so if you wanna check it out head on over. I have a profile there, you can find me at http://thirdseal.proelite.com/

Yesterday 5 Oz. broke word that the UFC would be holding a conference call to announce a new television deal. Details are not known at this time if the TV deal is an extension with SpikeTV or if its a venture with a completely different TV outlet.

Brock Lesnar, Wanderlei Silva, Chuck Liddell, and Dana White are all supposed to be available at the conference to field questions.

The UFC scheduled the conference call for 4PM EST, only 30 minutes before Randy's presser. This is definately not a coincidence and was likely done to make the press choose between one or the other.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25th - MMA Legend Randy Couture will hold a national press conference at Xtreme Couture Martial Arts to address his reasons for resigning from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in every capacity. Randy will respond to the comments made by UFC President Dana White. Additionally, Randy will respond to Yahoo! Sports report that he makes between $3.25 million - $3.75 million per fight, which they continue to stand behind.

Afterwards, Randy will make himself available to answer questions concerning his relationship with the UFC, future plans, MMA as a sport or anything else pertaining to his resignation.